Yuletide: Flying Dutchman

Sometimes the ocean-going way is so seductive, it invades our carols without our faces filled with actual salt spray. These metaphors can be powerful.

Check out Carbon Leaf’s “Christmas at Sea.” C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-S. O. S.: A boat afloat at sea; Row you to me–Christmas at sea. Charming indie about missing you.

Alkaline Trio headbands the punk of “Snake Oil Tanker” with observations like: This time you’ve dug yourself an anchor too heavy to move ahead with. It’s never felt colder at Christmas. So there. Bang.

The Spongetones bring an elegant classiness to their mixed metaphor poetry piano bar tune “There’s a Star.” Starts with a ship and a shore. There’s Christmas in there… Must be something about redemption.

A tight squeeze in this category “Christmas Time in Motor City” is dandy industrial rock (multi-media) from Was (Not Was). An ugly cityscape ends with the image: I sit and watch the traffic panic, it sails away, Look at this…It’s Christmas Day… Noice.